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The social media platform was once a favourite of artists and photographers, but a shift towards TikTok-type videos and shopping could leave them looking for a new home online
This confirmed Binding’s hunch that although most people believe that Instagram is a place to share photos and Twitter is a place to share words, that may no longer be the case. When it launched in 2010, Instagram courted the artistic community, inviting respected designers to be among its initial users and naming its very first filter X-Pro II, after an analogue photo-developing technique. In her 2020 book No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram, technology reporter Sarah Frier documents how Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom wanted Instagram to be an outlet for artists (in a high-school essay, Systrom wrote that he liked how photography could “inspire others to look at the world in a new way”).
Photograph: Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Wired
But Facebook bought Instagram in 2012. Systrom departed as CEO in 2018. And three weeks before Binding uploaded his lavender pics, the new head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, posted a video to his personal social media accounts. “I want to start by saying we’re no longer a photo-sharing app.”
Click on Instagram today and you will still see plenty of photos, but you’ll also be confronted with a carousel of short, vertical videos (known as “Reels”) as well as the more-than-occasional ad. In his video, Mosseri explained that “the number one reason people say that they use Instagram in research is to be entertained” and the app was going to “lean into that trend” by experimenting with video. Citing TikTok and YouTube as competition, Mosseri said Instagram would “embrace video” and users could expect a number of changes in the coming months.
The move has the artistic community seeing Pantone 032. Though there’s no way of knowing how many artists, architects and photographers have left the app, many are at least threatening to. . .
Sara Tasker, an Instagram and creative business coach and author of Hashtag Authentic: Finding Creativity and Building a Community on Instagram and Beyond, says her inbox was “immediately flooded” with creatives “terrified that this meant they would be left behind”. The 37-year-old says video is time-consuming, has a steeper learning curve and can be a challenge for those who are self-conscious in front of the camera.
“The idea that they have to dance for their audience – literally – just to make sales or have their art seen is a kick in the teeth to those who have been sharing and connecting on these platforms for years,” says Tasker, who has more than 220,000 followers on her @me_and_orla account.

Sara Tasker: ‘The idea that they have to dance for their audience – literally – just to make sales or have their art seen is a kick in the teeth.'
’Photograph: @me_and_orla/Instagram
CIRCUMSCRIBED BY A PLATFORM ... In April, writer and Washington University media professor Ian Bogost argued that “a creator is someone whose work is wholly circumscribed by a platform”.
While creators make content that can only exist within a certain app, many creatives simply put their offline art online. To put it another way: Instagram’s creators can only exist on Instagram, Instagram’s creatives can go elsewhere. . .You hear people talking about fighting the algorithm but that’s a job in itself,” she says (she has around 3,000 followers on her account @taaryn_b). “I think we should as artists be looking elsewhere and not relying solely on Instagram.” She says people are moving back to their personal websites and blogs (Waplington resumed directly collecting fan and follower email addresses last year).
Still, Brench admits she feels “a bit chained” to Instagram and doesn’t want to completely quit the site because of the community there . . .
AND THE USUAL BLAH RHETORIC:
Whatever happens next, it’s clear that Instagram isn’t the app it used to be. Instagram expert Tasker says it once nurtured creators with workshops, parties and even surprise gifts such as photobooks and calendars, which she says is no longer the case. Instagram employs people who curate content for its own official account so it arguably fosters talent in that way – its latest post highlights the work of trans activist and spoken word poet Kai-Isaiah Jamal.
In an emailed statement, a Facebook company spokesperson wrote: “We’re inspired by the millions of creatives using Instagram to express themselves, create businesses and communities every day. We began as a photo-sharing app and will always be a platform for visual storytelling, no matter its format.” They went on to say that Instagram users shape culture and the app is “constantly developing new formats and tools to help people express themselves. . .
MORE?? Here ya go-go > Amelia Tait
-- both in the air, on-the-ground and in underground water aquifers where replenishing surface waters seeping into the ground is not keeping pace with unsustainable sustainable sprawl demands to supply the Real Estate-Industrial Complex economic-engine.
Growing fast around both of them are massive residential real estate developments as well as industrial facilities.PHOENIX — Governor Doug Ducey is calling on the U.S. Department of Defense to take prompt action to address Pentagon-related groundwater contamination near Arizona’s military installations.
In an April 27 letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Governor Ducey requested DOD to identify and treat water in Arizona contaminated in the areas surrounding four DOD installations and to prevent additional human exposure to PFAS from other DOD facilities in Arizona.
The four installations with known impacts to groundwater—Luke Air Force Base, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Morris Air National Guard Base and the former Williams Air Force Base—are located in the two most populous metropolitan areas in Arizona, and each is surrounded by businesses and residential communities where thousands of Arizonans live, work and rely on clean groundwater for drinking.
The water is contaminated by per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
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May 2021

This is not an emergency and there is nothing you need to do. Your water continues to be safe, clean, and reliable and meets all state and federal drinking water standards.
Please share this information with all the other people who drink this water, especially those who may not have received this notice directly (for example, people in apartments, nursing homes, schools, and businesses). You can do this by posting this notice in a public place or distributing copies by hand or mail.
If you have questions, please contact the City of Mesa, Water Quality Services at (480) 644-6461 or water.quality@mesaaz.gov.
Water Resources Department
Water Quality Services
Contact: (480) 644-6461
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Probably nobody likes what could be another potential public relations nightmare about a basic necessity and the most precious commodity here in The Salt River Valley/Watershed - water. 
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